Imagine a world where instead of going to school, you could stay at home everyday and not face the burden of waking up early to make it to your first period class on time. Sounds like a fantasy, right? This could become a reality if you choose to participate in distance learning and take your classes from home by way of online or video conferencing. However, the question is whether or not this system would be efficient in educating students, and if students benefit from being able to attend classes from home. Although distance learning may seem like a better alternative to many students, it's clearly ineffective in educating them properly. Students would not benefit from being able to attend classes from home because there would be no face to face interactions with their instructors and peers, there would be no hands-on-learning within their class lessons, and students would not be able to become used to a college setting after participating in distance learning for a long time.

Interacting with people face to face is essential for maintaining not only a proper education, but mental health and social life as well. Interacting with teachers is crucial when students have trouble understanding a topic or lesson. In a classroom environment, teachers can easily explain the questions that students may have through visual demonstration. Take for example, my math class at school; when I have trouble understanding a topic in math, I ask the teacher. She then proceeds to demonstrate an example on the Promethean board, showing all the work and further explaining other questions I have. In an online setting however, students would be restricted to communicating with their teachers through messaging or email. In that scenario, it would be hard for teachers to explain student's questions due to their inability to provide a visual demonstration. Also, students may be in the risk of experiencing loneliness due to the lack of social interaction. Students make most of their friends through school, and by having an online classroom with no face to face interactions, they're missing out on all the friends and memories they could've made. Maintaining a social life and friends is critical for the mental health of children and young adults, and distance learning would only be taking this away from them. Distance learning would not serve to be beneficial to students because of its inability to provide face to face interaction interaction with teachers and their peers.

Another way distance learning isn't beneficial to students is that it provides no hands-on-learning activities. Hands-on-learning is an effective way of learning which makes lessons and concepts a lot more memorable. It's also necessary for science labs and projects. Last year in my AP Biology class, we frequently did labs, which helped me learn the material a lot better than the lectures did. An example would be when we dissected an embryo of a pig, in which I was able to gain a better understanding of anatomy and parts of the body. Group projects also widened my understanding of topics in other classes as well. When we had to use a three dimensional printer to copy the outline of a roman column, a type of architecture, I was able to better understand the designs and features involved in the creation of this type of structure. Online classes wouldn't be able to provide the same opportunity because it would be impossible to perform regulated science labs and complex projects in a household setting. Many students find hands-on-learning activities to be more compelling and memorable than lectures and notes. Due to the inability of distance learning to provide hands-on-learning, it's an ineffective form of education which won't serve as a benefit for students.

Aside from distance learning's lack of ability to provide face to face interactions and hands-on-learning, it also fails to allow students to experience an ideal college classroom setting. A majority of high school students plan to pursue higher levels of study in the future and attend college. Universities often have classroom settings for their lectures, and students will not be used to it if they have been studying from home for their high school years. A classroom setting and a household setting are two completely different experiences. It would be difficult for someone to get used to a classroom setting after they've spent years without even stepping into a classroom. Another disadvantage is that they may find participating in group work to be difficult. Many college assignments involve projects or group work, and distance learning students would likely not be able to perform as well in those assignments than as students who attended regular school. For example, it may be hard for them to follow the directions and meet the requirements for the project, as well as being able to interact and make agreements with their group members. Furthermore, group work is also critical in jobs outside of college, so this applies to students not attending college as well. Distance learning students wouldn't be used to the ideal college or job setting and would have trouble getting used to it. Because of this, online education wouldn't benefit students as much as regular classrooms do.

Although the idea of not attending school and staying at home all day is a dream for many students, it fails to serve the same benefits to students that regular classrooms do. When comparing distance learning to classroom settings, it can be seen that learning in classrooms is a much more beneficial option. Students would not benefit from being able to attend classes from home because there would be no face to face interactions with their instructors and peers, there would be no hands-on-learning within their class lessons, and students would not be able to become used to a college setting after participating in distance learning for a long time.